Feeling behind, I resolved to take some armodafinil the next morning, which I did - but in my hurry I failed to recall that 200mg armodafinil was probably too much to take during the day, with its long half life. As a result, I felt irritated and not that great during the day (possibly aggravated by some caffeine - I wish some studies would be done on the possible interaction of modafinil and caffeine so I knew if I was imagining it or not). Certainly not what I had been hoping for. I went to bed after midnight (half an hour later than usual), and suffered severe insomnia. The time wasn’t entirely wasted as I wrote a short story and figured out how to make nicotine gum placebos during the hours in the dark, but I could have done without the experience. All metrics omitted because it was a day usage.
Lost confidence. If you can’t find your keys, much less get through your workday in a timely fashion without a slew of mistakes, you are going to lose confidence in both your brain and yourself. When you cannot remember where you put things and it takes an absurd amount of effort just to do a simple task, you might question your very sanity. As your confidence continues to nose-dive, you just end up making more and more mistakes. It turns into a vicious cycle.
Dr. Mosconi: I love apples. When I’m at the office though, I’ll bring homemade trail mix [made with] higher quality dried fruit, nuts and seeds. [It's] packed with brain-essential nutrients that come from goji berries, Brazil nuts, walnuts, cacao nibs, pistachios, hemp hearts and more. Plus, I drink plenty of rose water throughout the day, which is very anti-inflammatory.
Last spring, 100 people showed up at a Peak Performance event where psychedelic psychologist James Fadiman said the key to unleashing the cognition-enhancing effects of LSD — which he listed as less anxiety, better focus, improved sleep, greater creativity — was all in the dosage. He recommended a tenth of a “party dose” — enough to give you “the glow” and enhance your cognitive powers without “the trip.”
Analgesics Anesthetics General Local Anorectics Anti-ADHD agents Antiaddictives Anticonvulsants Antidementia agents Antidepressants Antimigraine agents Antiparkinson agents Antipsychotics Anxiolytics Depressants Entactogens Entheogens Euphoriants Hallucinogens Psychedelics Dissociatives Deliriants Hypnotics/Sedatives Mood Stabilizers Neuroprotectives Nootropics Neurotoxins Orexigenics Serenics Stimulants Wakefulness-promoting agents

Of course, before wrapping up this section on psychedelics, I’ll address the topics of where to actually buy the stuff. There are a variety of websites that sell psychedelics, but not all ingredient, chemical or quality sourcing is created equal, nor is there any guarantee that any substance you are purchasing is not laced with undesirable compounds. Heck, I get my psilocybin from a farmer in Wisconsin who is a personal friend, and other ingredients from close acquaintances who have their own sources. I know it may seem unfair, but sometimes sourcing comes down to “who ya know” and doing your own due diligence on that person’s source.

Some nootropics are more commonly used than others. These include nutrients like Alpha GPC, huperzine A, L-Theanine, bacopa monnieri, and vinpocetine. Other types of nootropics are still gaining traction. With all that in mind, to claim there is a “best” nootropic for everyone would be the wrong approach since every person is unique and looking for different benefits.
And yet when enthusiasts share their vision of our neuroenhanced future it can sound dystopian. Zack Lynch, of NeuroInsights, gave me a rationale for smart pills that I found particularly grim. "If you're a 55-year-old in Boston, you have to compete with a 26-year-old from Mumbai now, and those kinds of pressures are only going to grow," he began. Countries other than the US might tend to be a little looser with their regulations and offer approval of new cognitive enhancers first. "And if you're a company that's got 47 offices worldwide, and all of a sudden your Singapore office is using cognitive enablers, and you're saying to Congress: 'I'm moving all my financial operations to Singapore and Taiwan, because it's legal to use those there', you bet that Congress is going to say: 'Well, OK.' It will be a moot question then.
My impression after the first two days (2 doses of 400mg each, one with breakfast & then lunch) was positive. I did not have the rumored digestion problems, and the first day went excellently: I was up until 1:30AM working and even then didn’t feel like going to bed - and I probably should have since I then slept abominably, which made the second day merely a good day. The third day I took none and it was an ordinary day. This is consistent with what I expected from the LEF l-threonate & TruBrain glycinate/lycinate, and so it is worth investigating with a self-experiment.
If you are in or are able to come to London, you may be interested in also coming to a one day workshop we are hosting with Patrick Holford, our founder and one the UK’s leading nutritional therapists. We are excited to be running this workshop, which enables our supporters to access Patrick’s wealth of knowledge on nutrition and mental health. More details can be found below. If you are outside of the UK and are interested in this workshop or learning more about nutrition and mental health, please sign up for news on our Seminar series here.
The different ADHD medications like Adderall and Ritalin are classified as stimulants, and deal with these symptoms by increasing the neurotransmitters known as dopamine and norepinephrine, which are associated with pleasure, movement, and attention. They have a calming and focusing effect on people affected with ADHD, and are helpful for the inattentiveness, poor memory, impulsiveness, and mood swings experienced by those people.
Nicotine absorption through the stomach is variable and relatively reduced in comparison with absorption via the buccal cavity and the small intestine. Drinking, eating, and swallowing of tobacco smoke by South American Indians have frequently been reported. Tenetehara shamans reach a state of tobacco narcosis through large swallows of smoke, and Tapirape shams are said to eat smoke by forcing down large gulps of smoke only to expel it again in a rapid sequence of belches. In general, swallowing of tobacco smoke is quite frequently likened to drinking. However, although the amounts of nicotine swallowed in this way - or in the form of saturated saliva or pipe juice - may be large enough to be behaviorally significant at normal levels of gastric pH, nicotine, like other weak bases, is not significantly absorbed.
Or in other words, since the standard deviation of my previous self-ratings is 0.75 (see the Weather and my productivity data), a mean rating increase of >0.39 on the self-rating. This is, unfortunately, implying an extreme shift in my self-assessments (for example, 3s are ~50% of the self-ratings and 4s ~25%; to cause an increase of 0.25 while leaving 2s alone in a sample of 23 days, one would have to push 3s down to ~25% and 4s up to ~47%). So in advance, we can see that the weak plausible effects for Noopept are not going to be detected here at our usual statistical levels with just the sample I have (a more plausible experiment might use 178 pairs over a year, detecting down to d>=0.18). But if the sign is right, it might make Noopept worthwhile to investigate further. And the hardest part of this was just making the pills, so it’s not a waste of effort.
With this experiment, I broke from the previous methodology, taking the remaining and final half Nuvigil at midnight. I am behind on work and could use a full night to catch up. By 8 AM, I am as usual impressed by the Nuvigil - with Modalert or something, I generally start to feel down by mid-morning, but with Nuvigil, I feel pretty much as I did at 1 AM. Sleep: 9:51/9:15/8:27
The evidence? Although everyone can benefit from dietary sources of essential fatty acids, supplementation is especially recommended for people with heart disease. A small study published in 2013 found that DHA may enhance memory and reaction time in healthy young adults. However, a more recent review suggested that there is not enough evidence of any effect from omega 3 supplementation in the general population.
The drug methylphenidate is marketed as the brand Ritalin and used to treat children and adults with ADHD. As of 2011, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 11 percent of Americans aged 4-17 were diagnosed with ADHD.[13] The high number of people diagnosed with ADHD means that there is a vast amount of prescription drugs to treat this condition in medicine cabinets across the US. Ultimately, some of these drugs get diverted into the hands of non-prescribed users, such as college students who believe they may be able to improve their studying and performance on exams by taking these drugs.

A common dose for this combination is 500 milligrams per day of Lion’s Mane, 240 milligrams per day of Ginkgo Biloba, and 100 milligrams twice per day of Bacopa Monnieri. Consider buying each ingredient in bulk to have stock and experiment with. If you are not experiencing positive results after 12 weeks, try adjusting the dosages in small increments. For example, you can start by adjusting Bacopa Monnieri to 150 milligrams twice per day for a couple weeks. Be patient: the end result is worth the trial and error.

This tendency is exacerbated by general inefficiencies in the nootropics market - they are manufactured for vastly less than they sell for, although the margins aren’t as high as they are in other supplement markets, and not nearly as comical as illegal recreational drugs. (Global Price Fixing: Our Customers are the Enemy (Connor 2001) briefly covers the vitamin cartel that operated for most of the 20th century, forcing food-grade vitamins prices up to well over 100x the manufacturing cost.) For example, the notorious Timothy Ferriss (of The Four-hour Work Week) advises imitators to find a niche market with very high margins which they can insert themselves into as middlemen and reap the profits; one of his first businesses specialized in… nootropics & bodybuilding. Or, when Smart Powders - usually one of the cheapest suppliers - was dumping its piracetam in a fire sale of half-off after the FDA warning, its owner mentioned on forums that the piracetam was still profitable (and that he didn’t really care because selling to bodybuilders was so lucrative); this was because while SP was selling 2kg of piracetam for ~$90, Chinese suppliers were offering piracetam on AliBaba for $30 a kilogram or a third of that in bulk. (Of course, you need to order in quantities like 30kg - this is more or less the only problem the middlemen retailers solve.) It goes without saying that premixed pills or products are even more expensive than the powders.

I noticed on SR something I had never seen before, an offer for 150mgx10 of Waklert for ฿13.47 (then, ฿1 = $3.14). I searched and it seemed Sun was somehow manufacturing armodafinil! Interesting. Maybe not cost-effective, but I tried out of curiosity. They look and are packaged the same as the Modalert, but at a higher price-point: 150 rather than 81 rupees. Not entirely sure how to use them: assuming quality is the same, 150mg Waklert is still 100mg less armodafinil than the 250mg Nuvigil pills.
A study mentioned in Neuropsychopharmacology as of August 2002, showed that Bacopa Monnieri decreases the rate of forgetting newly acquired information, memory consolidations, and verbal learning rate. It also helps in enhancing the nerve impulse transmission, which leads to increased alertness. Also, it is known to relieve the effects of anxiety and depression. All these benefits happen as Bacopa Monnieri dosage helps in activating choline acetyltransferase and inhibiting acetylcholinesterase which enhances the levels of acetylcholine in the brain, a chemical that is also associated in enhancing memory and attention.
Following up on the promising but unrandomized pilot, I began randomizing my LLLT usage since I worried that more productive days were causing use rather than vice-versa. I began on 2 August 2014, and the last day was 3 March 2015 (n=167); this was twice the sample size I thought I needed, and I stopped, as before, as part of cleaning up (I wanted to know whether to get rid of it or not). The procedure was simple: by noon, I flipped a bit and either did or did not use my LED device; if I was distracted or didn’t get around to randomization by noon, I skipped the day. This was an unblinded experiment because finding a randomized on/off switch is tricky/expensive and it was easier to just start the experiment already. The question is simple too: controlling for the simultaneous blind magnesium experiment & my rare nicotine use (I did not use modafinil during this period or anything else I expect to have major influence), is the pilot correlation of d=0.455 on my daily self-ratings borne out by the experiment?
Take at 11 AM; distractions ensue and the Christmas tree-cutting also takes up much of the day. By 7 PM, I am exhausted and in a bad mood. While I don’t expect day-time modafinil to buoy me up, I do expect it to at least buffer me against being tired, and so I conclude placebo this time, and with more confidence than yesterday (65%). I check before bed, and it was placebo.

This is absolutely fantastic work - Dr. Mosconi's clear, concise prose readily breaks down the science of how we can protect our beloved brains from the horrors of dementia and keep our minds humming beautifully for years. Her mastery of the various key subjects - neurobiology, nutrition, biochemistry - is incredible and her ability to decode complex scientific findings into digestible, easy-to-use advice for the layperson is second to none. This is easily one of the best popular science books I've ever come across and by far the best read on nutrition I know of.

I decided to try out day-time usage on 2 consecutive days, taking the 100mg at noon or 1 PM. On both days, I thought I did feel more energetic but nothing extraordinary (maybe not even as strong as the nicotine), and I had trouble falling asleep on Halloween, thinking about the meta-ethics essay I had been writing diligently on both days. Not a good use compared to staying up a night.
Including comprehensive lists of what to eat and what to avoid, a detailed quiz that will tell you where you are on the brain health spectrum, and 24 mouth-watering brain-boosting recipes that grow out of Dr. Mosconi's own childhood in Italy, Brain Food gives us the ultimate plan for a healthy brain. Brain Food will appeal to anyone looking to improve memory, prevent cognitive decline, eliminate brain fog, lift depression, or just sharpen their edge.
These little chemicals prompt the immune system to kick in and fight back against the stress through inflammation, as though stress is an infection. While inflammation helps protect us against illnesses and repairs the body when you do something like cut yourself, chronic inflammation is a different animal. It’s been linked to autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, anxiety, high blood pressure and more. (2)
I noticed what may have been an effect on my dual n-back scores; the difference is not large (▃▆▃▃▂▂▂▂▄▅▂▄▂▃▅▃▄ vs ▃▄▂▂▃▅▂▂▄▁▄▃▅▂▃▂▄▂▁▇▃▂▂▄▄▃▃▂▃▂▂▂▃▄▄▃▆▄▄▂▃▄▃▁▂▂▂▃▂▄▂▁▁▂▄▁▃▂▄) and appears mostly in the averages - Toomim’s quick two-sample t-test gave p=0.23, although a another analysis gives p=0.138112. One issue with this before-after quasi-experiment is that one would expect my scores to slowly rise over time and hence a fish oil after would yield a score increase - the 3.2 point difference could be attributable to that, placebo effect, or random variation etc. But an accidentally noticed effect (d=0.28) is a promising start. An experiment may be worth doing given that fish oil does cost a fair bit each year: randomized blocks permitting an fish-oil-then-placebo comparison would take care of the first issue, and then blinding (olive oil capsules versus fish oil capsules?) would take care of the placebo worry.
…The first time I took supplemental potassium (50% US RDA in a lot of water), it was like a brain fog lifted that I never knew I had, and I felt profoundly energized in a way that made me feel exercise was reasonable and prudent, which resulted in me and the roommate that had just supplemented potassium going for an hour long walk at 2AM. Experiences since then have not been quite so profound (which probably was so stark for me as I was likely fixing an acute deficiency), but I can still count on a moderately large amount of potassium to give me a solid, nearly side effect free performance boost for a few hours…I had been doing Bikram yoga on and off, and I think I wasn’t keeping up the practice because I wasn’t able to properly rehydrate myself.
(People aged <=18 shouldn’t be using any of this except harmless stuff - where one may have nutritional deficits - like fish oil & vitamin D; melatonin may be especially useful, thanks to the effects of screwed-up school schedules & electronics use on teenagers’ sleep. Changes in effects with age are real - amphetamines’ stimulant effects and modafinil’s histamine-like side-effects come to mind as examples.)
Low-dose lithium orotate is extremely cheap, ~$10 a year. There is some research literature on it improving mood and impulse control in regular people, but some of it is epidemiological (which implies considerable unreliability); my current belief is that there is probably some effect size, but at just 5mg, it may be too tiny to matter. I have ~40% belief that there will be a large effect size, but I’m doing a long experiment and I should be able to detect a large effect size with >75% chance. So, the formula is NPV of the difference between taking and not taking, times quality of information, times expectation: \frac{10 - 0}{\ln 1.05} \times 0.75 \times 0.40 = 61.4, which justifies a time investment of less than 9 hours. As it happens, it took less than an hour to make the pills & placebos, and taking them is a matter of seconds per week, so the analysis will be the time-consuming part. This one may actually turn a profit.

Before taking any supplement or chemical, people want to know if there will be long term effects or consequences, When Dr. Corneliu Giurgea first authored the term “nootropics” in 1972, he also outlined the characteristics that define nootropics. Besides the ability to benefit memory and support the cognitive processes, Dr. Giurgea believed that nootropics should be safe and non-toxic.